Consider the lilies

In my high-heeled twenties 
I thought flowers had be earned.
That I had to put myself in your way
To captivate you and
Prove how beautiful I was
By your words.

Now I am older,
I like to be barefoot.
I know that wildflowers bloom divine
On a breath, dressed sky blue red 
For the Sun -
Whether seen by you,
Or no-one. 

LJ Ireton 2023

Two sides of the window

We are perfect stillness -

My two circled cats and I.

Outside, the wind is

Crying, chaotic -

A reedy sound slipping 

In through the walls

To haunt our contentment, 

Only for the contrast to enhance it.

I light another candle,

A silent soldier

Against the cold

And I write 

About both

Needing each other

For a poem. 

LJ Ireton 2023

This Cobalt Morning

In the darkest time,
Under the mid-season blue sky,
I find each Robin by their song,
Heralding me into this 
Cobalt morning
From three trees -
An open-beaked tryptich. 

Everything about me is reluctant.
Everything about you 
Beckons 
The whole cold Earth
To come and turn under your tiny feet.
And I do -
Walk under the
Exhaling,
Heat-coloured hearts
Of Winter. 

LJ Ireton 2023

A Restless Heart

You can hear the wings
Of a restless heart -
Beat, beat 
Beating against 
Its resistance.
There are no fae-like fluttering dreams
For those whose
Imagination never sleeps,
But a weighted emerald bird,
With a sharp beak;

Always waiting on something
In this slow world -

A heavy hope, creation

Hovering

In a ball of energy

Beating until

You can see

Her.

LJ Ireton 2023

A break in the rain

A break in the rain
Of November
A family of moorhens
Patter up a bank
Under the yellow leaves
Ghostly green in the middle
Clinging on -
Or maybe 
A moment of Spring 
For these brown younglings,
For me;
A kinder cold,
Visible soft -
Before half a moon 
Sinks us back into the season 
Of wishing it still
Was.

C. LJ Ireton 2023

The Ghost Captain

Gentle is the ghost behind the command -
Marching a memory
Of heartbeats
Lingering where earth would meet
Percussive feet
In polished shoes

And masked face -
Sharp instruction fills 
The space
Where pacing 
Won't outpace the past -
Gentle is the ghost behind the command 
When the Last Post shouts into another realm
Of night, quiet, silent thoughts
Louder is the order, then
Yet soft as the soil,
Tapped in tandem
When there was another,
And control felt closer.
Gentle is the ghost behind the command -
The old clock chimes
See-through secrets 
Under the
Sound. 

C. LJ Ireton 2023

After the rain

Out of the mud marshes of Middle England, 
Rainbows rise wide and down.
At their source, molten silver has pooled
Around mounds of stubborn grass,
Making the brown sludge beautiful 
And white birds, not minding the shallow,
Sit on the sheen, 
Dotting the water under the distanced trees
And tantrum-tired sky.
The spectrum draws eyes over the sodden

Landscape, the leaden background -
But the gulls only look forward 
Resting on the reflected light,
Making fields the sea. 

C. LJ Ireton 2023

Queen-in-Waiting

I have worn mourning many times
I carried her elegantly at least, 
Lace-draped loss. 
In grief I still knew glory -
I held out my sombre skirts,
I knew where to step.

But this constant unknowing
Grasps at my chest -

With each cold breath
A mocking kind of hope,

The entertaining of a ghost

Future lingers.

Each day I dress a maybe

With wordless fabric, 

So heavily weighted -

Elizabeth knows her indecision 
Will cut to the bone
Eventually. 

Copyright LJ Ireton 2023

The elegance of ivy

It has taken me decades
To look how I wanted to
At eleven -
The rough elegance
Of ivy, wound and dripping 
Off bark
Jagged perfect hearts,
After years, a bouquet
Of my own making
And not listening to you
Or my impatience -
Just the girl
Who didn't want to brush her hair,
But catch her billowing skirts
On jutting leaves. 

I know how to be her now.
May I forgive myself
For never waiting long enough,
For forgetting
The desire of the young,
The trailing lovely dirty forest,
The gait of the willow - 
In my impulsive attempts
To shape a flower,
Instead of letting her grow.

Copyright LJ Ireton 2023 

White Horses

The reflection of an egret
Under the willow,
Wings wide -
The sight of white horses,
Walking celestial
Moonlight in the field -

The sky guides us
To the old earth,
The new 

Amongst the dust, the crumbling,
Stars fly in the river,
Faith chews on fading grass. 

LJ Ireton 2023

The First Laughter

I will never forget the first laughter -

After the day I cried
And kept crying;
Into hours that were weeks
And weeks that were hours,
Wading through cloudlike reality -
For a time, I can only remember the clouds...

Until one evening, a suddenness,

A stubbornness -

My cat leapt up onto the lap 

Of a lady saying she didn't like cats.

Four legs cutting feline, quick, 

Wilful through all human feelings 

And shoulds

Landed through the fog

Of what I could not feel -

Here was something I loved.

And I laughed. 

LJ Ireton 2023

October Haiku

The October wind
Stroking the September Sun
Whispers her potion

LJ Ireton 2023

All things descending

The season falls, I watch
Without control
The split and bounce of conkers
Into the mist,
The rain and covering of burnt orange
Shed by the sun.

The wind sweeps time up
In front of me,
Sailed on by a yellow wagtail -
She still looks like Spring.
But the squirrels are ready -
Listening, claws sharp 

And eager to dig.

I'm not sure what I'm meant to let go of,
Yet,
Or what to search for 
Under the wisps of this year,
Settling.

But maybe all things descending
Will leave answers in my hands -
Solid as shells,
Green as the ivy always sure of herself -
Maybe all things descending
Will leave answers.

LJ Ireton 2023

In the forge

I lived within the heat of love -
That honey metal glow in the hearth,

Those marvellous sparks.

I followed the wild amber of the heart -
Singeing parts of me 
That should have turned
With the burning of my finger tips.

Wanting is molten.
It still is.

But wisdom is being the fire
And the blacksmith. 

LJ Ireton 2023

The soul knows how

My cat swirls around the solid floor,
Head first, like an slick otter in a stream -
This is how she shows happiness.
We have the words, so many words,
But underneath, or before,
The soul knows how to dance,
How to purr. 

LJ Ireton 2023

Imaginations

I thought wishing
Was meant to be weightless -
An entire silver world 
Existing within a snowflake.
But somehow, carrying
Beautiful imaginations
For a long time
Only makes them
Heavier. 

LJ Ireton 2023

An equinox

It was an equinox-
A mourning 
I stroked the shell of a horse chestnut seed
With my thumb 
And crows cawed under
Grey clouds neon -
Causing the Sun to tumble out 
As if confused from sleep,
Burning on instinct -
Unsure who had summoned,
But eager to answer.
And even with my face to the fire,
Remembering,
A cold future snaked along my skin -
Because all is in-between 
Isn't it?
Ever moving -
We long for one star or another,
With reverie or inertia,
Lacking the steadiness of birdsong,
Of singing whatever the sky. 

LJ Ireton 2023


 

A September Gloaming

The flower suns have fallen,
Releasing small sleeping stars
Encased in beetle shells
Into my hands.
I sit, pensive
Looking at where the high petals were -
Their gold pink now given to
Gloaming September skies,
The blood blush in the cold.
Maybe nothing goes 
But is in another place to find
As the world turns. 
Still, it is harder to see in the dark
And I prefer to be barefoot
With the transient flowers at twilight.

LJ Ireton 2023 

Two birds

Two birds broke free, sudden
Into the blue
From behind continental clouds.
Tiny, tiny, away from 
Clockface clutches
And human musts

They lift my lungs

I've been failing to fill,
As my muscles sink sighing

Into the ground -
I can watch them fly

I can watch them fly
And nothing else.

LJ Ireton 2023

The Stranger

I don't know your name,
But you came to me -
Out of all the walking galaxies
We are,
Dust and stars -
And asked me the question.
 
I saw the swirling dirt
Somewhere in your spirit,
And I knew it -
We never forget
Our sandstorms in the dark.
But I could feel you distrusting
Someone with light 
Like fireflies visible through their skin -
Just like I did, too.

Believe me, when I said to you:
'Just hold on',
It was from my own interstellar years -
Adrift and waiting.
My witness is made and made of dirt - 
I speak with the echoing birth
Of a star. 

LJ Ireton 2023

For a walk

He says: 

'we can go for a walk in the forest at three thirty'.

I say:

'we will go for a walk when the forest creatures call me'. 

LJ Ireton 2023

This morning I saw seagulls

This morning I saw seagulls,
Far from the sea
Circling the moon

I can not tell the type of day I'm walking in to - 
The Sun, on the other side, said it loved me
But I have a stone in my shoe
On the way to the station

Change can be mysterious, it can be
Frustration.

I am far from the sea
Circling the night -
The only certain answer
To a day of
Question. 

LJ Ireton 2023

The other world

I can't describe the mystery of healing -

I only know the feeling
Of crying into my cat's fur -
Like my own solitary cloud.

And hearing her rolling purr -
Like all life is silent 
Apart from her way of breathing.

That a form of prayer
Is listening to the rhythms of the other world -

The angels with claws.

LJ Ireton 2023

From a Selsey Rooftop

I open the window to 

Rustic tiled turrets and, beyond,
The blowing blue sea -
Breathing over them,
Over me.

 
Distant small boats with sails
Are white water butterflies
On the skyline
From an older time -
But older is current here,
A constant exhale.

And everywhere, birds.
Unbrushed brown sparrows,
Speckled, grey gulls on rooftops,
Magpies claiming the chimneys,
Black gulls the beach stones -
Wings
Have a belonging here,
A belonging to the breath,
A belonging to the sea.

LJ Ireton, 2023

Dandelions

It's impossible to share everything
with one 
person -

From flowers fly
Many-seeded stories

Belonging to one mind -

The water is hers,
To him the sky

Other creatures sit in silence with me

And you read my words. 

LJ Ireton 2023

The swallows

The swallows glide in a line,
Clouds behind 
And leap like a heartbeat on a screen
Tiny
Pulses of life. 

LJ Ireton

2023

The Peace Prize

If I'm quiet now -

On my own a lot,

Ink under plants

Tree trunk by water,

Bare feet -

It's because

I'm done with chaos.

My own mind tortured me 

With tangled noise -

Distress signals screaming,

Siren doubts, singing louder

Over each other

For the sanity trophy

In a soup bowl.

Silence

Once was to me 

An unreachable precious prayer,

The ghostlike glitter water

The thirsting throat imagines

In the desert.

I dipped disbelieving, grateful hands 

Into this stream

And here I swim.

Here I swim.

LJ Ireton

2023

After the rain

After the rain - 

Stark white and lingering grey,

A procession of black balloons 

Ghosted across 

An invisible street in the clouds.

Seven solemn phantoms made by man -

Light enough to be lifted away from the earth 

And yet, I thought

What weight must they be carrying?

LJ Ireton

2023

Stone Shadows

At the deepest part of the stream,

Young silver-green fish dart

Into the dark parts

Of piled-up rocks -

A rubble edge of a new world. 

Their white fins flap in the finding -

Sunken stones are waiting shadows, 

A shelter for tiny slippery souls.

But their side eyes re-emerge

Looking older.

In the sleek space of black,

A pause in the dip and rise -

Safety has changed colour.

They are cautious leaving these

Stone shadows now. 

Minute lights flicker on and off 

Under the water -

Decisions in small silk bodies.

LJ Ireton

2023

On the wild water

The lake bites, pre-historic,

Cold -

When clouds come 

Black ink spreads under my limbs.

I swim into wet green sun -

Less unknown,

And towards a lone white beak.

Here I hover, held by red eyes -

Electric on the wild water

Deciding 

On the natural 

In me.

LJ Ireton

2023

Showing you the birds

Each day I run down

The blossom-strewn bank

To the shallow stream - 

Brown stone under pink

And watch the lone bird

Visiting -

Heron, egret, moorhen, crow.

Today I brought you with me

For the first time -

Showed you how we must get low

Under the trees,

Took you to the brown stones

And standing on the pink

We saw not one, but two jewelled mandarins

Together.

I tried to memorize the russet colour,

The white stripes 

But I always think in symbols

And couldn't deny

The imagery here -

Excited I repeated this to you,

Over and over.

I had wanted to show you the 

Chance of it,

The beauty of the birds

But you got to see, instead

How my mind worked

On blossom-strewn banks

Precious,

In the water. 

LJ Ireton

2023

The Collective

I crouch lower

Under the howling wind -

The never tiring traveller carrying a constant cry

From the unprotected ones.

The Garden has been forgotten -

At least from the ground

I can watch the forget-me-nots lift into 

Small 

Blue 

Butterflies.

LJ Ireton

2023

Upon waking

Hammering in the forges

Of sleep

My mind makes

And makes.

How beautiful the glow,

The means -

Some nights the sheen.

But by the same,

Where heat meets disorder 

A torment of shapes -

Strange metals dropped

Upon waking

And still heavy. 

LJ Ireton

2023

For Marshall and Millions

Paws skittering on pavements

Soft ears,

Black panic -

A power barrier of men 

Place themselves 

Between a day

And ebony worlds broken.

Where is the chance for small hearts?

Their charcoal outlines drawn 

On ours.

LJ Ireton

Copyright 2023

A little poem about Felicity

I've tried a few times

To write a poem about Felicity

But it comes out full of cliché:

Princess, Queen, pretty, pretty.

She does snore sometimes,

We converse in chirps

And I call her polar bear

When she shows me her

Snow-white belly -

But can I say that

About royalty?

LJ Ireton 

A little poem about Otus

Otus has long feet,
A small face,
Sand and ginger shapes
Across his fur - like a giraffe 
With stripes the colour of burnt toffee.
Directly in the Sun
His eyes are prehistoric pure amber
But he is dog, often
He purrs with his tongue out
And sniffs everyone.

LJ Ireton 

Things unsaid

I didn't know what I wanted to be

Because 

What I wanted

Was not in the careers library

At school -

There was no section 

On how to be a Disney Princess

Or have success like Madonna

So I said

'Journalist, I guess'

And scrambled through

The next few years

And then more.

It was friends -

Speaking other futures

Out loud,

That changed

'Could' or 'could not'

In my head.

Reality is who you

Listen to - 

I made music about it.

C. LJ Ireton 2023

A Sprinkle of Sand

A sprinkle of sand -

Wafting whisper magic

Lands 

Earth to earth -

Back where it was

Gathered

By Enchanted hands.

Like salt from seaweed

Spells sit on my tongue,

Hang off my hair -

I scatter nature's chaos

Into the wind.

I have heard of a darker kind -

Far away

From rising white waves

So sharp it cuts minds,

Souls, ink black

Stains

Into the beautiful blue.

And I never thought 

It would call to me -

I would stay here dirty knees 

In crushed flowers if I could. 

But if it saves you

I will strain my ears to hear the curse

Turn away from what I know,

Let go

Of the earth. 

(Inspired by Wren in Cursed Crowns)

Copyright LJ Ireton 2023

Waiting for the Sun

Winter lingers too long.
Snowflakes dissolved into poems
Months ago,
Yet the steel jaw of sky
Won't give up the Sun.

Spring is in a straightjacket
Somewhere,
Wanting to
Reveal its skin -

The memory of healing

Simmering

Under mine.

C. LJ Ireton 

Landmarks by Night, Liverpool

I always stepped off the bus 

By the bombed-out church 

When the sky was navy blue

And falling into streetlight stars 

On lamp-posts.

Bold Street lit up

The red brick outline,

The blown-out windows,

My hollowed-out heart.

The trees inside were 

Shadow black,

But the friendliest ghosts -

They marked the start 

Of the unknown night

Steps and cobblestones

Towards something.

For the first time in my life, 

I felt free 

Not to choose -

I wandered off where there was music,

The silent walls behind me.

C. LJ Ireton 2023

Glimpses of Sun on a Teacup

It is all for

Days like these -

Typing while the tea

Seeps and cools on the side, 

Crows with anxiety  

Raise cat eyes at the open window

Triangle breeze -

Enough of the world 

For now.

Everytime the clouds tease

A divine moment,

White fur rolls towards the 

Square of Sun.

There is no obligation

To 'be' any type of person -

Even yourself,

Scattered on the floor

Somewhere with your clothes -

You can pick up the bits you choose

Tomorrow,

Use the same cup

If you want. 

C. LJ Ireton 2023

Rainbow sometimes

 

I do not want to see a rainbow sometimes - 

I want one, always, in my hands;

To carry mystery-coloured flame through 

The smokey street of tired people.

Some will say: ‘I want that’.

Others will find it ‘distracting’.

Those who favour grey will complain that it’s not

‘Appropriate’.

And while they argue,

I will stroke the original ghosts

Of colour,

Untouched by fumes or opinion

And keep walking.

C. LJ 2023

The first Springtime Swim

I stretch out Winter under the water

Muscles yawning into light blue -

Blinking away black skies,

Stillness 

And who I was on land.

C. LJ 2023 

Seeding

I sink my skin into the soil

Place a beginning

Under a black, damp blanket.

I am an instrument

Of the making magic -

The Sun says so.

I touch more places,

But some only see dirt -

Ask me to clean it up.

I can not understand resistance 

To scattered bits of beauty.

I have faced it all my life.

What kind of soul 

Would not want 

This earth

Filled with flowers? 

LJ Ireton 

C. 2023 

Seeds

 The gardener, sowing seeds all day

Doesn't expect to see trees by nightfall.

Yet I fold my arms daily

In frustration, waiting.

LJ Ireton 

Introvert

There was noise
And people speaking -
So much thinking,
Thinking
Thinking.
Now, with just my cats
Quiet smiles
And sleepy blinking.

LJ Ireton 

To Convalesce

To convalesce,

I recommend a cat

By your side -

Curled into a crescent moon,

Head upside down and smiling

In her sleep.

Let her show you

The sanctity of stillness

Made with soft shapes

And circles. 

LJ Ireton 

In Silence

God seems silent, sometimes -

The distance of white empty skies.

I complain when I can't work in silence,

No-one sees my crafting.

Only the finished poem. 

LJ Ireton 

Haiku

Piano notes play

Muted raindrops on windows

Percussion to souls 

Carrying Kingdoms

In solitude I let the kingdom out
We carry everything we can’t reach
Feelings tumble down my wild hair
Held behind the window.

My empire rises out of my skin
Scratched on paper, the things taken
Frustration, 
Thoughts at war to win the image
Of who I still am.

It can not be contained -
My spirit haunting the bone walls
Shapes of defeat and determination
Meet, merge and rise.

Soldiers are steel or self-doubt
In solitude I let the kingdom out
Gold-leaf tear ducts
Vision before eyes.

LJ Ireton